The Name Game

Jen asked how we came up with the names for our kids, and if we have names picked out for any future kids.

My mom's name is Kathleen (that's her middle name - her mother and grandmother also went by their middle names) and she's been "Kathy" since she was a child. When I was growing up, and even to this day, sometimes my Granny would lovingly call her "Katrina" as a little pet name. And ever since I was in high school, I had thought, "I would love to name a daughter of mine Katrina, then I could call her Kate." I liked the name and it had some family meaning.

Then Hurricane Katrina happened in August of 2005, and 2 weeks later I found out I was pregnant (more on this later). As I'm sure you remember, the coverage was awful, and my friend Cindy was living there at the time, so I was getting personal reports as well. All of the sudden, naming a baby Katrina the following spring didn't seem like a good idea. Kind of morbid.

But I still liked Kate, and not only is my mom's name Kathy, but as it turns out, Brian's mom's name is Kathy Ann (she also goes by Kathy). So we thought it would be a nice way to name after both of our moms with a modified version of both of their names. We both really liked Kathryn, so we decided on that. I like the full version, and part of me hopes that she'll use it when she's older. I intended to call her Kate, but while she was still in the womb, Brian started calling her Katy. It just stuck, and before I knew it, she was Katy. We did have a back and forth debate about whether to spell it Katy or Katie. We decided on Katy because it made sense with the spelling Kathryn and was a little different, since Katie is a somewhat common name.

Katy's middle name is Faith, because we felt like the whole pregnancy during the first year of marriage was a faith experience. I like the name so much, that before I found out that David was a boy, I was wishing I hadn't used it for Katy because I would like to use it as a first name.

As for David, the story is a little shorter. Brian had told me even when we were dating that is he ever had a son, he wanted to name him after his late father. His name was David and he went by Dave. So when we found out that David was a boy (after 4 granddaughters on that side), we quickly decided on that one. I like the full name David, especially. Then we decided that his middle name would be Richard, which is my dad's first name.

So basically, each of us came into the relationship with one name on the table that we wanted to use. If we have any more kids, it'll be a blank slate. Which would be crazy. I have a few girl names in my head that I like, but not a single boy name comes to mind. And I have no idea what Brian thinks. So that's where we are!